Today in rumors of another Starbucks opening in the East Village

Last week, when the "for rent" signs went up outside Kate's Joint on Avenue B, a reliable tipster told us, "There is a very real possibility that a Starbucks will open here."

Perhaps, though it seems unlikely given that Kate's has a full liquor license.

Meanwhile, today. EV Grieve reader Greg Masters spotted workers at the retail space of the newly unveiled 219 First Ave. at 13th Street.

"A construction worker at the site ... believes a Starbucks will be moving into the ground-level space."

History proves that construction workers aren't always the most reliable sources of information. New DOB permits show that work is starting today on an "interior fit-out of existing commercial space." No mention of a tenant just yet for 219 First Ave.

Still, the retail listing for 219 First Ave. was chain/franchise baiting... so you might expect something chainy-franchisey here...

2 East Village 'historic places' selected for Partners in Preservation program

[EVG file photo]

Today, officials from American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced 40 NYC finalists for their Partners in Preservation program, which provides preservation grants for local historic places. Per the news release: "The program will infuse $3 million in grants to preserve the city’s historic buildings, icons and landmarks."

Here's more from the Partners in Preservation website:

From April 26 through May 21, 2012, local residents and people across the country are encouraged to vote for their favorite of 40 historic places throughout the five boroughs of New York City to receive preservation funding.

Voters are allotted one vote per day ... The four projects that receive the most public votes will have their grant requests fully funded, and the remainder of the $3 million in grants will be given to a number of the other sites after review by American Express, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and an advisory committee composed of civic and preservation leaders from New York.

Through this partnership, American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation seek to increase the public’s awareness of the importance of historic preservation in the United States and to preserve America’s historic and cultural places. The program also hopes to inspire long-term support from local citizens for the historic sites at the heart of their communities.

Anyway, of the 40 places that they selected, two are in the East Village...

• St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery
Project: Restoration of the portico

• DMAC - Duo Multicultural Arts Center on East Fourth Street
Project: Restoration of 6 murals, decorative tin ceiling

[A Duo before and after via the Duo website]

You can learn more about the program ... as well as vote right here.

Disclosure:
Organizers asked EV Grieve to be part of their Partners in Preservation Blogger Ambassador Program. We'd just need to visit 3-5 sites and attend a couple of the events they had planned. Then we'd write about them, noting that the posts are "sponsored." For this, we'd receive a $2,000 stipend. We declined. Actually, we never responded to the three emails about it. Regardless, we still wanted to mention that this is happening.

Breaking: Teens getting body parts pierced on St. Mark's Place

It's "mutiliation" as Andrea Peyser describes it in her Post column today.

To an excerpt!

Mutilation. It’s all the rage — for middle-schoolers. Six girls, some in braces, lined up in front of a storefront on St. Marks Place after school this week. At least it looked like St. Marks Place. For this once-grungy stretch of the East Village, where a 7-Eleven recently joined the hodgepodge of bong-selling head shops, has turned into the mecca for a special form of self-expression: St. Marks is the body-piercing capital of North America.

She learns that there aren't any statewide regulations in place related to age minimums for body piercing. Anyway, all this can be dangerous for the teens, she writes — "potentially permanent damage." Not to mention infections. "Until adults act, we’re bound to see mutilated preschoolers," she concludes.

You probably saw this one coming

You write "hand rolls" on plywood and... well.

Anyway, Iconic Hand Rolls is opening here on First Avenue at St. Mark's Place next month... the former home of Cotan ... and Shiki Kitchen before that...

Rejected headlines included:
Isn't it iconic. Don't you think?

Revisiting the East Sixth Street sinkhole

Just checking in again on the sinkhole that formed and opened yesterday on East Sixth Street between Avenue A and Avenue B... it shut down the street for several hours while workers rescued a truck tire and what not.

How's it looking this morning?

Fixed! Or, repaired! Or, filled in! (Temporarily so, for the most part.)

And we were hoping to do this again if the city didn't fix it so quickly...


[August 2009]

That time again: May's CB3/SLA agenda includes 34 Avenue A (again); new home for Gruppo Pizza

[34 Avenue A]

Seriously, didn't we just do this? Well, CB3 released its meetings rundown for May, including the CB3/SLA docket...

SLA & DCA Licensing Committee
Monday, May 14 at 6:30 pm — JASA/Green Residence, 200 E. Fifth St. at Bowery

As always at this point, we don't know a lot about some of the new applicants just yet... Have a tip about any of these? Please let us know via the EV Grieve email ... Here are a few of interest... the whole agenda is here.

Renewal with Complaint History
• Boiler Room (JB Max Inc), 86 E 4th St (op)

• Ninth Ward (Church & Louis Inc), 180 2nd Ave (op)

• Numero 28 (La Meridiana 2 Ltd), 176 2nd Ave (wb)

• The 13th Step (149 Second Ave Rest Inc), 149 2nd Ave (op)

Sidewalk Café Application
• Nicoletta (Letta #1 LLC), 160 2nd Ave

• Cornerstone Café (AO Café and Restaurant LLC), 17 Ave B

Applications within Resolution Areas
• To be Determined, 34 Ave A (wb)

A scratch from last month... Here we go again with this space, seemingly doomed to any applicant since Aces & Eights held the liquor license... As you probably know, CB3 has rejected all the recent plans for a bar-restaurant-performance space here. Will this be any different? The applicant is only vying for beer and wine...

[Ah the memories! 98 Avenue B a few years ago...]

• Pizza Grupo (Fat Dog Inc), 98 Ave B (wb/removal from 186 Ave B)

Layalay, the B&T hookah hotspot on Avenue B between Sixth Street and Seventh, got shutdown in October 2009. We've seen workers renovating the space... Pizza Grupo will be moving into here one of these days...

• Babel, 129 Ave C (op)

Alterations
• The Standard East Village (Cooper AB LLC), 25-33 Cooper Sq (op/close 2nd floor bar terrace/new outdoor space on north/alter hours/other alts)

Held over from last month. Read about the Hotel's plans here.

• To be Determined, 137 1st Ave (wb)

• Shervin's World Inc, 131 E 7th St (wb)

• Paulaner Brauhaus Restaurant LLC, 265-267 Bowery (op)

BoweryBoogie had the scoop on the German-based Paulaner Brewery aiming to open a beer hall just south of Houston.

Corporate Change (not heard at committee)
• Moonwalkers Restaurant Corp, 101 Ave A (op)

This is the Pyramid... continue to hear rumblings about its future...

b=beer only | wb=wine & beer only | op=liquor, wine, & beer | alt=alterations |up=upgrades

Movies returning this summer to Tompkins Square Park?

Another item of note from May's CB3 docket of meetings...

This sounds similar to last summer's EPIX Thursday night movie-concert series... And what highlights! Don King and Gilbert Gottfried in person! "The Warriors!" "Rosemary's Baby!" Of course, not everyone appreciated the corporate presence in the Park.

Anyway, we're sure they'll be more on this later...

East Village student aspires to redesign the MetroCard

Melanie Chernock, an East Village resident who is a graphic design student at SVA, recently launched a site titled The MetroCard Project. It's an ongoing project that aims to redesign the the Metrocard, which the MTA put into full usage on May 14, 1997. (Fast Company featured her work last Friday here.)

For example...

We asked her about the project.

[It] stemmed from an assignment to "create a deck of cards." I knew that I did not want to do something expected, so I immediately started to think of all the different types of cards there are. The concept of redesigning the MetroCard felt natural to me ... The card gets so much exposure and should be something thoughtfully designed. Creating the cards is an experimental process for me. I found that the first few cards I made were very conventional and as the project progressed they became more unusual. The purpose of the project is to show the many ways there are to design a better MetroCard and to promote better design within the city.

You can visit her site here.

Meanwhile, let's bring back the subway token!

Legalese: The MetroCard Project is in no way associated with the MTA. It is a school project intended only for creative purposes.

Caffe Buon Gusto lives on Avenue B!

Well, Caffe Buon Gusto does, indeed, live on Avenue B at East Fifth Street. We first reported the Italian eatery's incoming arrival in June 2009. However, through the years, the space became dormant, serving as a makeshift shelter and a canvas.

In fact, it is almost one year to the date since we last saw the gates open. Last week, though, readers saw activity inside.

Last night, multiple readers noted that the place was having its grand opening this week. (Last night looked like a family-and-friends evening, per one reader.) Workers were busy fixing up the space for the opening...

[EVG reader Duke]

[EVG reader Andrew]

[EVG reader AC]

...and here's the menu... they'll be opening for lunch too... and it looks as if they have a sidewalk cafe on the East Fifth Street side ...

[EVG reader AC — click to enlarge]

A reader said that they are related to the Caffe Buon Gusto outpost on the Upper East Side.

Saturday: Sixth Street Community Center celebrates its 35th anniversary

From the EV Grieve inbox...

Find tickets here.

[Updated] NYPD arrests two during Cooper Union protest

[Photo by DP in EV]

In the aftermath of Cooper Union's decision to start charging graduate students tuition, a protest of sorts broke out late this afternoon outside the school. As DNAinfo reported, "a one-man protest against Cooper Union's decision ... turned into a hour-long standoff with cops when the dissenter scaled the Peter Cooper statue."

DNAinfo ID'd the man as Jesse Kreuzer, a recent graduate of Cooper Union, who, at one point, reportedly moonwalked atop the statue. In total, he was up there for an hour and 40 minutes, according to the Daily News.

Per DP in EV who took the photo: "It started as usual and ended with 50 cops and a cherry picker to arrest the [man] on top of the Peter Cooper memorial."

In addition, some students walked out of class today at noon, per the GalleristNY.

Also, from a Cooper Union student via email: "Additionally, a female student was arrested for — no one is really sure. The police were trying to lock our school down so no one could go in or out, and in the ruckus of pushing everyone toward the building, suddenly like 4 cops tackled her and she was taken away in a squad car."

According to the Daily News:

"Cops also arrested Sara Abruna, 23, of Brooklyn, who tried to duck under a taped-off area. She was charged with harassment, disorderly conduct and obstructing governmental administration."

Sinkhole closes East Sixth Street

The block between Avenue A and Avenue b remains closed for now... depending on who you speak with, a truck either got stuck in the sinkhole or caused the sinkhole late this afternoon. Various city types got the truck's tire out of the hole... and a crew is on the scene now to repair it...

...and that's enough photos, Bobby Williams!

...and from Matt LES_Miserable ...

Today is the deadline to bid on the IHOP building

Back on Jan. 3, we pointed out that 235-237 E. 14th St., which houses the IHOP, was on the market for $14.5 million. The Massey Knakal listing noted that IHOP was paying $45,833 per month on a 10-year lease.

According to the listing, the deadline to bid on the property is today. So get that bidding paperwork in order! (And sorry for the short notice!)

To refresh your memory, here are details on the building:

The property, situated on the north side of East 14th Street between Second and Third Avenues, contains 17 low income housing units and a retail space. The building, erected in 1988, has approximately 4,300 square feet of retail space on the ground floor and approximately 18,019 square feet of residential floor area on floors 2 through 7.

And a new addition to the listing since January...

This IHOP location is one of the top performing in the country.

Previously on EV Grieve:
One explanation for the existence of IHOP on East 14th Street

Is this home fit for James Bond?

Or at least an actor who has played the character in the movies...

Last Thursday, the Post noted that Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig were continuing their house hunting around town... and that Weisz, who previously lived on East 11th Street with ex-husband Darren Aronofsky, looked at 238 E. Fourth St. just west of Avenue B.

At the time, the listing for 6,500 square-foot condo (asking $8.5 million) was not yet online.

Now it is.

Let's take a look via Town:

Surrounded by charming cafes and the most beautifully tended gardens in Manhattan, discover a published, discreet home, stunning from the moment you pull into the garage and enter this gracious, four story residence. Enter this beautiful home, and enter another era where true artisanship is revered. From the ceramic tiled foyer, which guides you past the chic, whimsical powder room, and into an awe-inspiring great room, with dramatic 18 foot custom-crafted wood coffered ceilings, created by the millwork artisan of the Gramercy Hotel Rose Bar, this home enchants the spirit as well as the senses. The great room serves as a grand, yet comfortable living space, centered around the massive, Italian Renaissance-style wood burning fireplace, which graces a sleek, poured concrete epoxy-finished floor.

Oh lordy. Make it stop. There are actually four more overly descriptive paragraphs just like this one. But you get the idea.

Just look now...

And floor plans...

Previous 238. E. Fourth St. coverage here.

[Images via Town]

15-second cinema: Opening the hatches at Cooper Union

Yesterday, in our post on the most out-of-place new buildings in the neighborhood, several readers broke the rules and selected a building not on the list.

The picked the newish Cooper Union building, which still is NOT being sold to NYU.

Anyway, maybe this will change your minds... After all these few years, we finally witnessed the automated windows opening at 41 Cooper Square the other week. (Please turn off all cell phones and pagers during the performance.)

Various reports: Grad students will start paying tuition at Cooper Union

[Outside Cooper Union earlier this week. Photo by Bobby Williams]

As you may have heard, Cooper Union announced yesterday that it will begin charging graduate students next year. There will also be fees for other professional and continuing education programs and online courses.

Meanwhile, for now anyway, the school's no-tuition policy remains in place for undergraduates. (You can read more here in the Times ... or at Gothamist ... or the Journal ... take your pick — everyone has the story... )

Previously.

SLA approves liquor license for 200 Avenue A

[File photo of 200 Avenue A]

Finally, an end to the ongoing saga of 200 Avenue A, the corpse of Superdive... As you may recall, a group calling themselves Hospitality LLC with a concept for an "art gallery with a full-service restaurant" (smell machine!) concept had appeared before and been rejected by the CB3/SLA committee three times.

The group then decided to go directly to the State Liquor Authority for its license. Read the background here. Then they went back to the CB3/SLA committee in March. Rejected again.

And, they kept fighting. Today, the group went before the State Liquor Authority. According to an interested observer there, "When it became clear that things might not go Hospitality LLC's way, they more or less surprised everyone and at the last minute agreed to a midnight closing on weekends. Didn't see that one coming."

Ditto.

Anyway, they really want to open here regardless of what the neighbors might think.

Here is what we know about them based on their CB3 documents from the March CB3/SLA meeting:

The three principals are looking at business hours of 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday; until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The kitchen will be open to within one hour of closing. The application also shows that they'd be 19 tables seating 52 people, plus one bar with 12 additional seats. The gallery-restaurant would employ between 20-25 people. Lastly, there are proposed "promoted events, scheduled performances."

Noted

East 13th Street today. Now all brown. Waving, not drowning.

Photo via evilnyc.

Previously.

What does it take to become the 'super nanny' for an A-list celeb's daughter?

A little mid-afternoon entertainment via a reader... from Craigslist (whether it's real, you never know...):

**** DAUGHTER OF A-LIST CELEB SEEKS DREAM NANNY ! $1500 WKLY ****** (Greenwich Village)
Please DO NOT Apply if you do not ADHERE TO ALL REQUIREMENTS BELOW
DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT apply if you are not a resident of NEW YORK.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I CAN NOT REITERATE ENOUGH, PLEASE DO NOT APPLY UNLESS YOU MEET THESE VERY SPECIFIC GUIDELINES BELOW. PLEASE READ ALL and FOLLOW VERY STRICT INSTRUCTIONS OR YOUR RESUME WILL BE DELETED.

I am looking for my Dream Nanny. Immediate hire. Interviews beginning TODAY and TOMORROW $1500 on the books. I want you to be part of our family and for my kids to adore you until they go to college.

JOB DESCRIPTION:
This is a LONG TERM position (15 years + COMMITMENT) for someone who is LEGAL to WORK as a LIVE-IN NANNY.... NO EXCEPTIONS. THIS IS A STRUCTURED AND BUSY JOB WITH RULES, TO-DO LISTS, ETC. You will NOT be left to care for my children alone. I will always be present and I am an active stay-at-home mom. ***** I HAVE HOUSEKEEPER, your job is to be my SUPER NANNY, but of course clean up after the kids and do their laundry (rarely) if needed.

HOURS: 6 FULL DAYS, OR 7 if you need a place to stay. ******You can choose EITHER TUESDAY OR WEDNESDAY as your DAY OFF. Summer days ( July & August Hamptons)

CHILDREN: 13 month old girl, 3 year old boy and newborn on the way (3 children)

YOU MUST BE Physically fit & Agile, energetic, active, have good intuition, be loving, engaging, and creative. Can you chase after 3 kids running in all 3 different directions? When my children are playing on the floor will you roll around with them? Can you crawl and jump? Can they climb on your back and hug and kiss you because they love you and think you are the best Nanny ever? I want someone who will stay with my children all while they are in grade school and high school until they leave for college.

1. PHOTO PHOTO PHOTO PHOTO! DO NOT EMAIL WITHOUT A PHOTO
2. List References NAME, and Contact NUMBER (All references will be contacted AFTER I talk to you first
3. Send RESUME
4. MUST have experience as a LIVE-IN NANNY (newborn- age 4 experience)
*** MUST HAVE EXPERIENCE WITH MULTIPLES (twins, triplets a plus)
5. MUST have been with prior families LONG-TERM, ie, 3+ years
6. RESPOND with either TUESDAY or WEDNESDAY in the subject line (as your day off) to let me know you have READ THE ENTIRE POST. ALL RESUMES THAT DO NOT ADHERE WILL BE DELETED. I need someone who pays attention to detail. If you can not follow simple instructions here, I do not want you caring for my children.
7. MUST BE Fluent in English --- can read, write, speak.
8. NOT allergic to animals - We have a large strong dog who roams as he pleases
*** MUST BE NEAT FREAK, & Super Organized
9. SWIM is a MUST! We travel to Hamptons, take boat trips and go to beach and pool when weather is warm.

Celebrating 1 year of Fiction Addiction tonight at 2A

Fiction Addiction, the monthly reading series upstairs at 2A, turns 1 tonight, as the headline suggests. Tonight at 8: Ben Greenman, Mike Albo, Shelly Oria and Ryan Britt. Info here.

h/t The New Yorker

[Image via]